breatheHR, provider of HR software for SMEs, reveals the staggering cost of small business employees bunking off: a whopping £900 million. The report found one in seven employees admitted to feigning illness and those that do appear to be serial offenders – pulling a sickie on average three times a year!
At the end of 2016, SMEs employed 15.7 million people and accounted for 99% of all private sector businesses. This economic force is only growing in prevalence and numbers; Britain needs the SME economy to be firing on all cylinders.
Jonathan Richards, CEO, at breatheHR comments: “We’re facing a costly absence epidemic. At a time when the government is attempting to decipher the ‘productivity puzzle’, over two million people are calling in sick when they are in fact not. Imagine if that number was halved, what uptick in economic performance would that deliver to the UK economy and SMEs?”
After researching over 1,500 British SME workers and business owners (5-249 employees) via Opinium, breatheHR found nearly half (42%) of employees who are pulling sickies do so due to needing a rest. However, just under half (46%) of workers are using up their full holiday allowance.
Richards adds: “Absence has a big impact on small companies, but it’s an area that is often overlooked or poorly managed. With the right support tools in place, SMEs can reduce business admin and free up more time to create a culture where sickies simply don’t occur. This report shines a light on how absence impacts employees, employers and the wider business ecosystem.”
Due to the piling pressure on business owners, half (51%) of them confessed to contacting an employee while they were on sick leave – this number jumps to 72% for younger business owners (18-34-year-olds) showing clear generational differences. Additionally, three-quarters (71%) of business owners would expect employees to work if they had a common cold. Why? Because absenteeism impacts the bottom line – 85% of business owners say it has an economic effect.
Other key findings include:
- 20% of 18-34-year-olds respond to work emails when off sick due to guilt – more than any other age range
- One in five (19%) pulled a sickie to avoid a situation at work, such as a stressful meeting – with more men than women likely to revert to a sickie (22% vs 15%)
- One in three managers have contacted staff while on holiday (36%)
Richards concludes: “The results are striking for how contradictory we are as people: employees aren’t taking their full holiday allowance but then phone in sick in order to have a ‘rest day’, and then check emails avidly. Unintentionally managers at small businesses are creating a culture where it is expected that employees are always available. So, what does this all mean for productivity?
“Business owners need to consider how their behaviour impacts others. Just because you’re happy to be contacted on holiday, doesn’t mean that should become the established norm. The impact is snowballing – again leading to absence in the form of preventable sickness – which costs business in terms of needing to invest both in cover and productivity.”
About breatheHR:
Life as a small business is exhilarating. By comparison, the admin involved in people management can feel a bit mundane. Managing people shouldn’t be taxing; it should be straightforward and intuitive. Say hello to breatheHR, cloud-based software that equips businesses with the tools and confidence they need to create the best employee experience.
Born in 2012, breatheHR now helps 2,500 companies manage their people with over 90,000 employees in the system. breatheHR is also sold through a successful partner network now supporting over 150 HR partners. Clients include: Mazars, ramsac, Digital Fibre and OneFile.
breatheHR is the trading name for Centurion Management Systems Ltd who’ve been selling software for 21 years.
About research:
Research was conducted by third-party research agency, Opinium, amongst a representative sample of 1,002 UK workers and 504 business owners in businesses with 5-249 employees, completed between 20-25 April 2017.
Our research found that one in seven employees have ‘thrown a sickie’ in the last 12 months. That figure by itself might not seem like an awful lot. However, SMEs employed 15.7 million people in the UK at the end of 2016. Apply that percentage to the total number of people employed by SMEs and you’re looking at 2,512,000 people that haven’t gone to work in the last year.
Add to this the fact that those people who throw a sickie do so on average three times a year, and that equates to SMEs losing more than 7.5 million working days. Based on the average UK salary of £27,000 those sick days have a combined value of £900 million to the UK’s GDP.
- 0.16x15.7 million = 2.5m
- Our research reveals 16% have pulled a sickie – and those that have pulled a sickie, have done so 3 times in the past year,
- There are 227 days’ employees are meant to work (this number excludes bank holidays – 8 days – plus 25 days for average holiday allowance)
- £27,000 is the average salary in the UK
- Formula for working out how much sickies are costing SMEs: (3/227)x27,000=357 (356.8)
- Therefore, the cost of pulling a sickie per person = £357
- So, 357x2.5m=900 million (896,784,000)
